Thursday, March 8, 2012

[by Chick] It’s been a great ride here at Chicken Fried Therapy but I think it’s time to let the curtain fall on this blog – at least for the time being. (What can I say, I’m like life after New Coke or Michael Jordan’s baseball career – always leaving the door cracked for a comeback.)

But those of you who have followed along for awhile know that I have another blog called FLY FISH CHICK and to be honest, it’s just been too difficult to maintain both.

For awhile I thought I could keep it all going by turning CFT into a group blog and I invited some girlfriends to co-author posts. That was a trip! They did great and it brought a new energy to the site. But understandably work, chickens, teenagers, and new babies took center stage and content dwindled.

I’ve often said between CFT and FLY FISH CHICK I have “my girl blog and my boy blog.” It’s become a crazymaker to juggle both and frankly I am feeling somewhat schizophrenic. I’m looking for one spot to share my stories and let it all hang out. So put the lithium away, I think one site is the panacea for my BBD (Blogging Bipolar Disorder.)

Besides, plenty of men have read CFT for years and gobs of women truly enjoy FLY FISH CHICK – some fish, some don’t! I do post about flyfishing over there, but I also post about food, music, style, travel, parenting – you name it. And since I am pulling it all under one roof, there will be more and more *me* stories mixed in with the fishing tales.

The categories are even separated out if you want to view the Fly Fish Stories and the Chick Stories separately.

So…I would like to invite each and everyone one of you to come on over to FLY FISH CHICK and enjoy all the same self-deprecating hilarity over there that you’ve enjoyed over here. Feel free to jump right in with comments, subscribe via RSS or email, pull up a chair, make yourself at home.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

[by Chick] First it was blogging, then Facebook, followed by Twitter and Instagram. But now it seems Pinterest is the hot new social media sensation whereby I currently derive one hundred percent of my self-worth and daily fulfillment. And I’ve only been on it for two and a half days.

If you aren't familiar with Pinterest, it’s a website where you can “pin” pictures of anything and everything that tickles your fancy…clothes, food, art, home decor, exotic hotels, motivational signs, books, films, etc. You organize your pins onto themed boards to keep track. For those of us who used to work at advertising agencies we can safely claim it is reminiscent of a concept board or a pitch board and we don’t have to admit that we all really learned about this technique from Oprah who referred to it as an Image Board, a classic self help tool for hapless women of a certain age.

But I digress.

Oh my word Pinterest is more fun that I could have ever imagined! It’s like every fashion, home decor, travel magazine in the world all rolled up into one site. With a cookbook and some good looking art to boot. Now that pesky waiting list was a bit off-putting (I mean for heaven’s sake it’s social media, not a country club) but I patiently waited my turn to gain my Pinterest account.

Okay, that’s a lie, the minute I saw I was on the waiting list I emailed a friend toute suite and bluntly asked her to produce an invite for me. Well, all I can say is Pinterest is lucky to have me because I am a pinning fool, and as evidenced by the torrent of people already following me (four, including myself) I have impeccable taste.

It’s clear that I will never wear any of these gorgeous clothes, cook any of these delicious meals, or travel to any of these exotic destinations, because apparently I am now relegated to the life of a shut-in as I don’t want to miss any time I could be at home in my grungy workout clothes pinning things on my iPad.

I don’t always surf the Internet for hours on end, but when I do, I prefer Pinterest.

It’s true, Pinterest is nothing if not addictive. They are bound to develop a 12-step program at some point.

Friday, January 13, 2012

[By Legally Blonde] Today is Friday the 13th, a day when adults who were scarred by watching the Friday the 13th movies at an impressionable age will be looking around every corner for Freddy Krueger. And superstitious individuals will be on edge all day waiting for bad things to happen, things that would never happen if it were instead Friday the 12th or 14th.

I have spent years trying to wean myself off all the superstitions I learned growing up. I’m sure most of you are familiar with certain of these -- step on a crack, break your mother’s back. Find a penny, pick it up, all day long you’ll have good luck. A black cat crossing your path is bad luck, but you can get rid of the bad luck if you make an X and spit three times. It’s bad luck to take salt and pepper directly from someone’s hand at the table, so make sure they put it on the table before your pick it up again. Spilling salt will result in seven years of bad luck, unless you throw the salt over your left shoulder with your right hand. Breaking a mirror will also result in seven years of bad luck, but I’m not sure what the cure is for that. You know that walking under a ladder brings bad luck, but did you know that driving under a moving train is good luck?

Opening an umbrella in the house will bring you bad luck, but the worst kind of luck will befall you if you do not exit the door that you entered. One night my parents went to a dinner party, entering the house through the front door. When the party was over and they were leaving, a torrential downpour had started and my parents didn’t have an umbrella. The host’s car was parked in the connected garage and he offered to drive my parents to their car parked down the street so they wouldn’t get wet. This would have meant leaving the house by the kitchen door, which my Mom refused to do. So she walked a block in the pouring rain and came back to get my Dad who was waiting for her in the dry garage.

Last year at one of my son’s baseball games, a little girl was sitting on the ground with her legs straight out in a crowded area. I was making my way to the dugout and so I stepped across her outstretched legs. The dad went crazy and made me go back over her legs and then walk entirely around her. The wife was apologetic, explaining her husband was just very superstitious. I complied with a smile but was baffled because I had never heard this superstition before. I called my Mom, who quickly exclaimed, “Well, she would have died!”

While I didn’t know this one, I do know a good many others: Sing before breakfast, cry before dinner, kiss an upturned hem for a new dress, don’t tell nightmares out loud or they’ll come true, put a penny on a knife if you give it as a gift or it will cut your love, get out of bed on the same side you get in, and my favorite one – if you put your underwear on inside out in the morning, you must wear it like that all day because it’s bad luck to switch it around. Click Here to Keep Reading...

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

[by Chick] Like so many people starting a new year, I have a new batch of news years resolutions! Okay, who are we kidding? Many of them aren’t “new”, just repackaged and recycled with a regurgitated sense of hope that I just might achieve them. But really, this is my year, I swear.

Here are just twelve of my goals for two thousand twelve. Some we’ve seen before, some are new…

1.Dive deep into the colored jean trend by buying at least one new color each month. I don’t want to miss this. I’ve already got a head start with some pale pink ones I bought on sale last August, plus three pair this month alone: crimson for the national championship game (Roll Tide), navy because they fit super cute, and Carolina blue for basketball season (Go Heels).

2. Lose so much weight that family and friends start to worry about me. (I know, I know, we’ve seen this one before. Sigh.)

3. Run my first 5K. Actually I am sort of globbing on to Little Chick’s goal here. She set out to run her first 5K and so the Professor and I are training with her to run in the Joe Cain 5K in Mobile AL during Mardi Gras. Which will also be my first 5K and conveniently will work toward Goal #2. Stay tuned, maybe we can get a live webcam to follow us. I realize it probably won’t have the hype of the Boston Marathon but I am really hoping to get one of those mylar blankets at the end – you know, to up my ‘athletica’ cool factor.

4. Improve my hoop dancing skills. Yes, you read that correctly. And yes, this is a recycled, and thus far unmet, goal from both 2008 and 2010. I did buy two new hoops last year which was a modicum of progress. And actually attended one hooping “meetup” that I learned about from meetup.com. (Am I the only person you know who has attended an event on meetup.com?) But truly, this is it people. I have been scouring youtube videos on hooping. I have designed a new hooping playlist on itunes. I am going to wow you with my hooping skills this year.

Fee free to do an intervention when I go so far as to buy a pair of these furry hoop dancing boots (very popular with the hooping crowd apparently):

5. Become more high maintenance. I am so low maintenance with my appearance (read: lazy) and so I think I need more beauty processes in my daily life. I am the farthest thing from wakeup and makeup. Maybe that needs to change just a bit? Not sure what I am working into the repertoire, I am open to suggestions. Actually I’m not open to suggestions, scratch that. But clearly this goal requires more research on my part.

6. Sell so many copies of my book PADDLEFISH that I become a localebrity and am invited to dance in the Austin TX ‘Dancing With The Stars’ charity event.

7. Cook more. The Professor and I are about to do a kitchen remodel, my mother just bought me all new cookware for Christmas, so the pressure is on. More cooking from this chick. Plus it dovetails nicely with Goal #2. I just know that a TV in the new kitchen (hardwired to the Bravo channel) would lure me into the kitchen for hours on end to create culinary masterpieces but I don’t think that request made the cut in the remodel. Bummer. Anyhooo, still…cook more.

8. Eat more vegetables. (As you can see, pretty much all roads lead to Rome and Goal #2.) For the record, I am no longer counting a corndog as a vegetable.

9. Finally, once and for all, learn how to create and successfully load one of those damn little favicons.

10. Get more of my friends to follow me on Instagram. And I will load so many dazzling photos that Instagram features me on their “Popular” page and my twelve year old daughter will actually be impressed. (For those of you who don’t know, the Tweens have flocked to Instagram for their social media since they are just a hair too young for Facebook.) Here’s a recent Instagram post I did from the Music City Bowl:

11. Plan just the *perfect* birthday celebrations for The Professor and Little Chick, both of whom have marquis birthdays this year.

12. Get more sleep. Not terribly original but hey, it’s a classic. Plus I am confident it will help with Goals 1-11.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I had to make a day trip to California on Tuesday. I was scheduled to give a presentation that afternoon in Monterey and had to get back for an important event on Wednesday afternoon. SO, my day started bright and early to get to the airport for my 8:25 flight. Only when I got to the airport at 7:30, I realized my flight was actually leaving at 8:05. I have the drive to the airport, parking, security and getting to the gate down like a science, so making the flight with 20 fewer minutes was definitely going to be a challenge.

Determined not to miss my flight, I took off running through the airport in my high heels with my briefcase and purse weighing down my left side. Thank goodness TSA and Delta are testing a new security procedure at the Atlanta airport – it allows frequent fliers to go through a special lane where you don’t have to take off your shoes or your jacket and don’t have to take your computer or toiletries out of your bag. So I pretty much breezed through security and then double-checked the monitors to confirm my departure gate. I couldn’t believe that it had been changed to E1 – for those not familiar with the Atlanta airport, this is about as far away as you can get – the last gate at the last terminal. The train ride to the E terminal lasted nearly 5 minutes, so I had to run up the escalator and all the way to my gate. They were making the final boarding call when I got there, sweating profusely, and made my way onto the flight and settled in for the 5 hour trip to San Francisco.

Once in San Francisco, I rented a car and started the 2 hour drive to Monterey. Having been rear-ended on the I-5 in Los Angeles by a movie trailer, I am fairly wary of CA highways, but I made it safely to the hotel where the conference was being held in Monterey. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and the entire drive I kept thinking I would find somewhere to pull off and get some lunch, but I never found anything suitable. So I made a beeline for the restaurant, where I met my co-presenter and had a wonderful meal – arugula salad with lemon vinaigrette, perfectly grilled halibut over couscous, and three pieces of warm bread with olive oil. I was stuffed.

We gave our presentation, I did all the networking I needed to do and then got back in my car for the drive to the airport. The drive back to the airport seemed much longer than the drive earlier in the day and I struggled to find a good radio station with songs I could sing along with to help me stay awake. I was booked on the 11:30 pm flight, but got to the airport in time to change to the 10:00 – and I even had an aisle seat. I was able to sleep a little on the flight back and landed at 5:30 am, drove home and arrived just in time to wake the kids up and get them off to school. I did get a couple of hours sleep before heading to work to ensure I wouldn’t commit malpractice. So there you have it, a lot of traveling and less than 12 hours in California. And I sure hope I don’t have to day trip to the west coast again anytime soon!

Friday, October 7, 2011

I have never used a crockpot – or any other off-brand slow cooker – in my entire life. Until last night. I can’t tell you how exciting it was to break into this strange new world of dump-n-dash cuisine. I love it! I started with a simple barbecue chicken “recipe”. Basically I just smothered chicken in Stubb’s BBQ sauce and went on my merry way.

I have to say…delish! The house smelled unbelievable and it was beyond easy. The drumsticks were better than the boneless chicken breasts, but all in all, a mighty success and a whole new world has opened up before my eyes.

In one swift move I have gone from Crockpot Virgin to Crockpot Crackpot.

Monday, September 12, 2011

[by Chick] While 2011 has been a fantabulous fairytale year, it’s also been a little decadent, and the waistline is definitely reflecting that. Mou mous are the garment of choice these days. But knowledge is power and I think I have identified the three most fattening things in my life these days:

1. Being a newlywed. It’s just so dadgum fun, who has time for exercise and restrained eating? We cook and grill out and I am dazzling my new husband with my culinary talents. (Those of you who know me well can stop laughing and/or choking about now.) You see, no matter what my oldest friends and mother think, my husband actually believes I am a great cook.

Plus, as Magnolia wisely told me, gaining weight the first year of marriage is simply a rite of passage and I should just enjoy it.

2. Having a middle schooler. Little Chick has started middle school and I am a nervous wreck. Make that a nervous snacking wreck. It’s actually going quite well, but let me just say there are very few television shows that are appropriate for 6th grade girls. Disney is too young. Bravo too racy. The only thing we can find to watch together these days is the Food Network. Lots and lots of the Food Network. I swear, I think I have gained weight just watching all that good food. (Some might suggest it’s actually all the time sedentary on the couch watching the Food Network, not some mysterious tele-transmitted calories -- but you never know…)

3. Writing a book. That’s right, I have written my first soon-to-be-released book with a real live publisher. I have literally been at the computer since February and let me tell you, writing a book is fattening. All this time in the computer chair, no regular meals during the day, snacking between lightbulb moments at the computer screen. It’s packed on the lbs! I do in fact look like Mrs. Roper. Which makes me want to waddle on down to the Regal Beagle and down a box of wine.

But I am not getting down about the scales going up because I am so excited about the book. It’s called PADDLEFISH and it is my non-fiction account of training and racing in the 2010 Texas Water Safari, a 260-mile paddling race from central Texas to the Gulf Coast. As a complete paddling novice I trained for a year and completed this grueling race last summer. The book covers all the grit, hilarity and emotion of such an adventure from the point of view of this 40ish, longshot, homeroom mom.

I hope the Texans will enjoy the Texas history I weave in and out along the river race route. And really, what self-respecting Southerner doesn’t love a good river story?

Stay tuned for details about the release in October, but if you’d like to read a sneak peek chapter or learn a little more click here to this page on my Fly Fish Chick site.

What Is CFT?

Group therapy for Chick and her beloved Drumsticks. CFT is a team blog written by a gaggle of hot southern girls (okay, so we're also PTA moms) who are bearing down on 40-something and giving it a swift, roundhouse kick to the jaw. Art, food, music, husbands, boyfriends, kids, college football, oysters, barbecue, shopping. You name it, we talk it about it. And if you read slowly you'll actually hear the slow, southern drawl dripping off each delicious word.Ha! Put your boots on! We spread it pretty thick in here...Welcome Yall.